Curbco Shopping

I wanted to explain my response to another thread without derailing it https://www.scrapmetalforum.com/off-...al-ss-era.html.

This is the second time I have tried this type of scrapping. I live about 45 miles from a community of 20,000 and this is the closet stop light to my home. Last year during the community clean up I took an individual with me and loaded up my "tub trailer" one I built from an old stock trailer, and gave that individual all of the proceeds. It was about $ 500 and the individual that benefited was "challenged." Today I did the same thing and will not know the value until tomorrow. I will be doing the same thing the rest of the week. Please understand that I am financially secure and just repaying my debt to society and the earth.

Some members on the forum might be Catholic and give a tith of their income to the church. I am not very religious, but very spiritual and all of the above is provided as a preface to my next statements.

While out doing the rounds I ran across several groups that could not speak English. The assumption that they were illegal immigrants came to my mind until I returned home and did some research. Did you realize you could take the naturalization test in Spanish? To tie this together, I am competing to help a US citizen down on their luck with illegal imagrants. To add insult to injury, this is in the heartland of our country. Adminstration may decide to remove this thread because it not politically correct, but I am tired of being politically correct.

No problem, there P76, you could never derail a thread of mine.

My hat's off to you helping a less fortunate citizen do some curbco. There's a young guy that works at a discount store here in bedroom town that I'd love to buy a decent dependable car for him to get to work. I heard him talking a few weeks ago about being sort of stranded by his "wheels" not working (I think he commutes into bedroom town to work) and his manager told him tough teet, get to work. I stopped in there tonight and asked him if his car was working and he said yes and pointed to an about an '83 Bonneville that should have been a movie prop. I'd love someday to totally surprise a kid like that (I like his work ethic, been in that store in the evnings more than once) and drop a 2-3 grand in buying someone like that a dependable old ride. Not trying to be a hero or stroke my ego, just do something totally unexpected and nice for someone. Maybe someday.

P76- I think you'd be surprised how many "indentured servants" we have in this state. The ag economy is tight margins and generally runs on economies of scale where low profit per unit of production only makes a middle-class or "better" lifestyle up by sheer volume. A guy or family gets across the border and ends up in some isolated small town (or out on the farm) and has no documentation so his boss basically has him by the short hairs (of course the illegal usually doesn't know that if boss turns the illegal in, boss is admitting guilt in hiring him in the first place). Boss keeps his working and out of town and maybe the foreman takes the "boys" in somewhere every couple of weeks to "blow off some steam" in a bar where English isn't spoken. In your case, that ride would probably be a couple of hours to get done. I suppose a life like that is better then gang members threatening to kill you or your family but its not exactly free either. We as a society really don't know what a lot of hired farm labor would go for at an open hourly rate because there's always been, at least in other parts of the country, the safety switch that "let's hire an illegal to do it, they won't complain about things." Cheap, "quiet" labor is preferred. I don't know what the answer is P76, but "Toto, we're not in Kansas anymore..."

Always been torn about folks seeking a better life as I know I might do the same if in that position...especially if family involved. That being said, when I started a construction biz in the early 90's I wanted to do it by the book and not like most that either 1099'd or paid help under the table to avoid paying payroll taxes. In a span of 15 years I witnessed new home construction being taken over by southern tourist and even though the prices of houses sky rocketed, the prices being paid dropped and the work load increased due to new codes being enforced. I no longer replaced help that quit until it was just me. Sad thing was many tourist worked harder then locals and would work weekends, but as I stated, I ran my biz legitimately.

Last week we had a trucker that barley spoke English, but had a green card, kill four people and cause a major incident on I-70 as he slammed into traffic doing 85 mph due to smoking his brakes coming down the grade into Denver.
https://www.9news.com/article/news/l...a-b83583910cc8

Scrap metal doesn't care what color your skin is, what religion you are or even if you are rich or poor. The way I see it is if someone uses this source of revenue to get buy another day good for them! People deal in scrap metal in every country in this world I believe.

Build the wall MAGA

Is it really a race issue ?

Is it really an immigration issue ?

Maybe you just resent the competition ? ( I know i do at times. )

You know how it is ... you're trying to get something done and help someone out. There's a bunch of people in your way and it's messin' up your Mojo.
Things that make you go ..... GRRRR v:)

< Sigh > We live in a competitive world. Look at nature and how just about everything out there is in a constant state of competition. It's the law of the jungle where only the fittest survive. Our world is like that too. To try to make it otherwise simply wouldn't be right. Over the long run .... natural law always holds true.

I agree that they are great workers and have every right to better themselves. I just think one expectation for living in the U.S. should be to learn our language. In decades past immigrants learned our language and often spoke their native tongue at home or in their communities. We did not teach English as a second language in schools and immigrates took pride in learning our language. Some may remember the demolition job I did in Omaha where everyone on the crew only spoke Spanish except the foreman and myself. That was the hardest working crew I ever dealt with, but communication was a major issue. Is it to much to ask that they learn our "official" language or am I expected to learn their language. Rant over.

Reminds me of an old joke that my son once told me.

Son: Hey dad ... what do you call someone that speaks two languages ?

Dad: Heck that's easy ... they're bi lingual !

Son: Okay ... what do you call someone that speaks three languages ?

Dad: I believe that's tri lingual ?

Son: Yep.

Now ... what do you call someone that speaks only one language ?

Dad: I dunno ... I'm stumped. What do you call someone that speaks only one language ????

Son: AN AMERICAN ! :lol:

It's funny how history repeats itself though.

I'm blessed with carrying memories of life here on the island that go back to the late 1800's. My grandfather used to tell me stories of what it was like back in the day when i was little. It used to be that granite quarrying was a major industry here. Stone cutting is much art as it is science and not many had the knowledge of how to do it. Many Italians immigrated here from the old country because the trade had passed from father to son for generations across the pond.

Both of my grandfathers worked the quarries while the industry was at it's peak and had similar complaints. The people didn't speak the language and were displacing locals from their jobs. In time ... it all smoothed out. The second and third generation Italians did learn to speak the language. They married and interbred with the locals and nowadays they're just like anybody else. It turned out to be a blessing because there was such a small gene pool here to begin with.

I totally get it regardless. It bugs me to see Hispanics displacing the natives in the construction trades. We've got Eastern Europeans working the shorefront and people of color working and making good money on the lobster fishing boats. Change is upsetting.

Still ... the right thing is to ride with the tide and go with the flow. Let the measure of the man be his work ethic and not his heritage or color of his skin. It's one of the principles that our country was built upon. Give em' chance to prove themselves worthy ?

Wow I could go off on this topic, but I won't. I'll just say "Good for you Patriot for helping the challenged CITIZENS of this country" and leave it at that.

Ive been self employed for the last 12 years living 60 miles from the border. I had a landscaping biz for 10 years and now scrap. In both fields I have illegal immigrants competing with me while not paying taxes and probably on all the welfare programs I don't qualify for.

So yeah F em...Build the wall and MAGA.

I could say more but I won't.

Funny thing is around here several of the scrap yards have all hispanic workers but very few hispanic scrappers.....i think they prefer the guaranteed pay check over what I do where money may fluctuate a bit.....This is Knoxville and things were different in Nashville due to wider difference in race/gender etc

It's the same thing only different here. I was 30 years in the trades with the last 16 being self employed as a freelance carpenter. It was different when i first started out. All of the new construction here was quality stick built on site. That all changed with the mortgage crisis hit. The banks won't lend money for construction loans anymore. They're too risky. They will loan money for manufactured homes that go up quick.

Most of the manufactured homes are trucked in from Canada now. That's a huge chunk of market share lost to our neighbors up north.

I think i became complacent over the years. If someone had told me twenty years ago that my job as a carpenter could be outsourced to a foreign country ... i never would have thought such a thing possible. My bad for not having the foresight to see the next wave of change and adapt accordingly.It's completely my fault. I should have been able to deal with whatever comes my way and i failed.

Another way we're getting hit here in the Northeast is with energy. Almost all of our petroleum products including gas, diesel, propane, home heating oil ... are coming from Canada.The state's electric utility has been consolidated and sold to a Canadian company. Gotta hand it to em' ... the Canadians are doing a pretty good job.

It's the same/same with wood pellets. Mile long freight cars filled with pellets coming in from the north and barely enough to meet demand here in the states.

All in all ... it's billions and billions of dollars flowing north every year. It's making them rich and us poor.

As regards the mentally challenged: I pump gas these days. Just about anybody can do my job. The company that i work for employed three of those with lesser ability on the pumps for well over twenty years. We lost two of the three over the last few years. One was lost to mental illness and another to physical health problems. We've been trying to get them back on the job over the last month but it's a no-go. They got on social security disability. Once they're paid to stay home ... they never come back. They just stay there and live off the system.

The third of the three mentally challenged is still on the job. He's a real trooper. Always nice to the customers, never calls in sick, and works outdoors in the worst of winter weather. I'm trying to save his job but there's a lot of pressure from above to automate the company gas station. He's in his 50's now and pumping gas is all he knows. It would be really hard to re-train him for another job within the company at this age.

Anyway ... it's an ongoing fight. A change will eventually come. I'm just hoping to hold it off long enough to get us both to retirement age before we're replaced by a machine.

Just a thought ... would it be possible for Patriot to find his friend a regular job in the recycling industry somewhere ? That's one of the options i was looking into last year for our guy when it was the company announced that it was going to automate our gas station.

To Hills: The gentlemen I helped last year has lost three jobs in the last year and is on total disability right now. The lady that went this year is going to start her own house keeping service. I am her first customer. We found her a carpet shampooer, three vacuums, totes, and lots of cleaning materials. All were in good to great condition. She even found a shopping cart and and dolly that I will fix. This will be a great asset in our community during good weather because she cannot drive given her challenges. This lady is thrilled with the value she found in curbco. She also gets the joy of donating several bikes we collected to local kids. I get to enjoy this form of scrapping once a year and it is worth every minute of it.

Where I live, some of the cities in my area have "city-wide cleanup" days in the spring. Items are left on the berms, in alleys, etc. for the city crew to pickup and dispose of.

A few of us drive around and see what is being thrown out. "Curb side shopping" is what is going on. I think people throw usable items out, because they do not have the space in their house, garage, etc. I live in the country and do not have this problem. Some city residents live on a postage stamp size lot and space is lacking to store items.

Also, one of the city dumps is open here at certain times. We are allowed to go out their and scavenge some items.

One mans junk is another mans treasure.....

I feel that Scrapping/Curbco/recycling is the highest form of capitalism. Do the work, make the connections, put in the time and you will be rewarded. Just as you are keeping things out of the landfill to be used again and putting some coin in your pocket, there are items we come upon that we know someone could use to improve their life. There you are not giving a hand out but a hand up, that person still has to put in the work, and time to be successful. You just helped them along the way. That also is an American custom that we are seeing less and less of. Thank you for being you.

Kind of as an inspirational:

The special needs gent at the company i work at has been on the job for over 20 years. I think some of it had to do with the original owner of the company. He was a real deal capitalist and true conservative. Maybe not the most likeable guy, but a very fairminded man. He gave everybody a chance. Those with special needs, immigrants that struggled with the language,LGBT, difficult personalities .... you name it.

His attitude was that nobody gets fired from MY company. Maybe he was just that good. As a business manager ... he could work with just about any human resource that was available to do the job.

After 40 + years in business the owner and founder decided to retire. He sold the company out to his employees about five years ago. Admittedly ... it's a little bit like leaving the crazy people to run the asylum but the company does function. There are no guarantees in business, but the employees stand to do quite well if this works out.

This is where it gets interesting:

See ... the gent with special needs bought in with 40 other employees when the original owner sold out. Now ... this man just doesn't have the ability to comprehend how a business works. He even had to have a court appointed conservator to help him with paying his utility bills every month. He's limited in that way ... but none of that really matters.

His share is just as good as anybody else's.

" Think Forrest Gump and his shares in apple computer." ;)

If it all works out ... his share could be worth 1/4 million dollars by the time he hits retirement age. A nice little nest egg for his golden years.

RUN FORREST RUN "to da bank"

Quote:

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Originally Posted by KzScrapper

Last week we had a trucker that barley spoke English, but had a green card, kill four people and cause a major incident on I-70 as he slammed into traffic doing 85 mph due to smoking his brakes coming down the grade into Denver.
https://www.9news.com/article/news/l...a-b83583910cc8

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I could see the smoke even from my house way out east when the accident first occurred.

That was awful.

I will say that I think the fact that the driver had a Green Card and spoke very little English had no bearing on the accident.

The trucking company is the most at fault and has had many more safety issues than this, it comes from being cheap and hiring cheap un-skilled labor and not being willing to spend the $$ and time to test and/or train drivers or it could be that the truck should not have even been on the road with any driver because it needed maintenance.

I am not saying the driver isn't at fault at all but more the trucking company, and again, the driver should be able to drive a truck and speak fluent French and bad English if he is truly a driver skilled enough to be behind the wheel of a tractor-trailer.

In regards to Curbco shopping (I am still a newbie and assume that means look for scrap appliances and random metal on curbs?), price of gas is going up and the price of metal is going down around here.

In regards to the original post, that was a very nice thing to do to help someone.

I find it interesting, and a bit sad that our idea of being American hinges on the language we speak. in most countries, folks are bilingual or more. This country need not be any different. We are all human beings with the same needs, wants, desires and feelings. The words we use to express ourselves is irrelevant. Additionally, the belief that immigrants from the past all learned English expeditiously is not true. My grandparents were immigrants and those who needed to speak English learned it and those who did not need it did not learn it. My first wife's grandmother never learned more than a few words and phrases her entire life. It is the same with today's immigrants. We assume that folks cannot speak English because they choose to speak Spanish. Most the time, however, those who need to speak English can do so but choose to speak Spanish because it is more comfortable for them, just like my grandparents who spoke Yiddish.